The Frog Prince with a dash of Cajun for added spice.

I never really liked the fairy story of the Frog Prince, I thought the princess was terribly spoiltmean to the poor Frog and really did not deserve anything except perhaps a good slap after the way she behaved, but boy oh boy I was relieved as anything this weekend to be the happy recipient of a copy of the new Blu-ray DVD of Disney's The Princess and the Frog when my neighbours small children became our unexpected overnght guests, leaving their young Mummy and Daddy to make an unscheduled dash to the hospital for the arrival of the children's new baby sister.

We hadn't had a chance to sit and watch the movie en famille so thank God you can rely on Disney to deliver something that will amuse the entire family without fear of either the young ones having nightmares or the older ones groaning. The Princess and the Frog is wonderful fun and I never thought I'd hear myself saying that in public! It truly is a return to the old beloved Disney style complete with great comedy, foot tapping hip jiggling New Orleans blues and enough colour, action and excitement to keep even our smallest monosyllabic critic happy. It is full of life and no nonsense 2D animation of the ilk of Snow White and the early classics which gives the old fairy tale a new and unexpected twist which improves the story no end. If you do not believe me then WATCH THIS and tell me you aren't enthralled too.

Being Blu-ray of course it comes with enough added features to keep the little monsters happywhilst I rustled up some munchies, well Louis the Alligator wasnt the only one being made hungry after all the Cajun cooking and prawn gumbo!!So I left the audience to enjoy and the Deleted Scenes,The Making Of A Princess, Conjuring The Villain , and the Princess Portraits Game whilst I conjured up some magic of my own in the kitchen in the form of yummy beignets , the doughnuts for which the French market in New Orleans is famous.

As it was baby sister made her entrance just after the movie was finished so we celebrated Princess style with warm sugar coated beignets and threw our own impromptu party in her honour toasting her with glasses of warm milk.


If you want to learn more about this exceptional movie then CLICK HERE oh and if you everwondered how to kiss a frog prepare to pucker up THIS IS HOW ITS DONE... well you never know when your Prince will come adn its best to be prepared

Follow the White Rabbit

When I was a smallish child I grew up in an old house filled with a vast array of victorian books including very old copies of Lewis Carrolls Alice in Wonderland and Through the looking glass. I loved those books, the heavy smooth paper, the wonderful binding and although the text with its small archaic type face was too far beyond my young years to decipher, the illustrations by Sir John Tenniel , a political cartoonist and illustrator were fascinating. There was something corrupted and wicked in them and to my mind quite terrifying and threatening and I could never understand why anyone thought it a sweet childs tale, and thought I was the only one who saw something evil beyond all the flamingos and eat me cake until that is I saw Tim Burtons movie last weekend. To me Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the looking glass held a dark depth which no one else seemed to pick up. Tim Burton obviously agreed.

The boys had seen the movie in the Uk and raved about it but I was dubious and did not pay much attention so when someone gave us a copy of Tim Burtons Alice in Wonderland to watch I wasn't expecting much more than a sanitized version of the orignal story with very little more than a cursory nod to the original text or illustrations. I was somewhat suprised to hear Johhny Depp was doing Alice but then he has kids so perhaps I thought he wanted something cute and white rabbity for them to watch. Frankly I suspected Burton and Depp had sold out to Disney. How wrong I was.

After the beginning of the story which was to my taste is a trifle too sweet and threatened to become something akin to a BBC childrens period drama, I was relieved to find it was no sugar coated bedtime tale but that it was scattered with the potential to descend into dark drear tale of my childhood memories .

Not only did the appearance of the characters stick closely to the original illustrations, the playing cards could have walked off the pages, but he preserved for me what was its very essence of the creeping unpredicatable events and pointless cruelty of the action. There has been a lot of criticism of the production, it isnt as witty perhaps nor as vicious as the book can be and admittedly the red queen was far from ugly( but then how could Helen Bonham Carter ever look ugly?) and her appearance owed more to the Duchess in the book than the red queen but you beleived her when she screamed off with their head, ok well you got the general impression it was a possibility that someone may well lose a head without going so far as to need to cover your eyes in case they did.


There were plenty of references that Lewis Carrol would have recognised although some were a bit muddled, it is the Duchess not the Red Queen who has the pig ( her baby changes into one) and the Duchess too has an oversized head but to an audience who are not overly familiar with more than the bare bones of the story then it works well. Alice follows a white rabbit falls down a Rabbit hole and discovers a world turned upside down.

I am not sure that for my taste the end is not too neat and a little heavy on modern mantra that as long as one is true to oneself then all will be well but it is certainly a movie that the boys want to see again and again and is worth watching if only for the wonderful visual spectacular treats that Tim Burton delivers. see this trailer and let me know what you think

Incidently did you know that Lewis Carrol suffered from severe Migraines and it is thought that the weird and strange plot is a result of those rather than a drug induced haze... mind you on the other hand the blue caterpillar does smoke an opium pipe so who can say....

I think its one to watch and has the makings of a Disney Classic....but then it is my kind of madness and I am quite partial to a world turned upside down.

A Great day for Up!!

When our brood were small some of the regular stars of story time were Dr Seuss's books . Designed to combat the rising tide of illiteracy with only 250 words in their vocabulary they grabbed the imagination of even the tiniest and most timid fledgling reader with their fantastic illustrations and barmy humour .They are full of fun. Kids like fun and generally speaking they are good at it too and can find it in the most unexpected places.

The great advantage that children have over us mere adults is the ability to see things that are everyday and boring as something magical and wondrous, the ability as Seuss put it to look at the world through the wrong end of a telescope and laugh at life's realities. It is something I think that Disney Pixar have turned into an art which is why perhaps they have produced such amazingly captivating characters in their feature animations.

There is a lot in this film that reminds me of Dr Seuss stories, they share the endearing eccentricities of plot, the wonderful wit , the zanny illustrations , characters like the rather odd bird called Kevin and other idiosyncratic beasts like Dug the talking dog .Seuss's books were brimming with get up and go-ishness without making any moral obvious they oozed encouragement for kids to follow their dreams and be themselves no matter how weird others may find them and generally they did not pussy foot over the nasty bits nor lie and say life is always going to be fun. Kids can spot that sort of untruth a mile off.

The Movie "UP" does not pussy foot over the nasty bits either. It is a film about about fallen heros lost dreams and finding love and happiness in unlikley places. I do not want to ruin the plot for you nor uncover too many of the little comic treats it holds therein but let me say that Not for nothing did this movie win 2 academy awards including best animated feature. So if you have children or want something to keep your inner child happy then I can think of no better way to do that than for you to go and get yourself your own copy of "Up", and if you need even more encouragement then click on the clickable links in this review above and watch the trailers.

On a technical note of course one of the joys of blu-ray is that all the extra space it has for bonus features like the making of the movie which you don't get on an ordinary dvd and which to visual thinkers and must know how its done freaks like youngest and I is better than popcorn as a movie watchers treat! So if you do not have a Blu-ray player then its about time you got one because you are missing out on lots of fun.

ps you may also want to buy a box of tissues just incase that inner child needs a good wail at some of the sad bits not to mention laughign till you cry at the funny bits too.

Enjoy!